Subscription Box Pricing Guide

One of the biggest mistakes new subscription businesses make is pricing their box too low. If your business is planning to launch a new box, it’s important to consider all the costs. Products and shipping are the big expenses, but there’s also credit card fees, packaging materials, custom box design, and marketing costs.

If you don't want to work for free it's also important to consider the amount of time it takes to find products, pack and ship the boxes, and answer customer questions. The business needs to earn enough profit to compensate for this time or it won’t be sustainable in the long run.

My average cost of products is

For most boxes, this will be one of the biggest expenses. Make sure to include the cost of products and getting them delivered to you.

Shipping is included in the box price

My average shipping cost is

This amount will depend on the box size and weight. Use our shipping tool to help calculate how much to charge. If you include free shipping, also make sure to exclude international shipping or account for that in your pricing.

Merchants generally don't outsource fulfillment until at least 200 subscribers, but it's worth thinking about early. $1.50 cents is a general average for subscription box fulfillment, but costs vary based on amount of touches (pack, tape, label, etc) and bulk pricing.

My marketing cost per customer is roughlyand my subscribers stay for
months on average

Planning to run Facebook ads or AdWords in order to generate interest? We recommend budgeting at least $15 per customer.

Customer churn can vary greatly depending on the type of box. Use the default 12 months if you aren't sure of what your average subscription length will be.

I pay about
in fixed monthly costs

Cratejoy costs $39/mo. Accounting software is around $9/mo. Gmail is $5/mo per user for business. Do you need to rent a space to do fulfillment? If so, your monthly cost is likely much higher than the default we've set.